Midlife

IIRC, there is an in-line fuse on one of the orange lines near the turn signal connector.

Midlife/Karnac says your new oval air filter is interfering with your choke mechanism.

That is absolutely false. All 69 and 70 dash cluster connectors, whether for standard or tach dash, have ground wires. Pins 4 for tach dash, 8 for standard dash. There is a trace for the ground plane for the bolt that holds the CVR that goes to the dash cluster flap.

Does this happen both when the engine is cold and after it has warmed up? Before starting, take the air cleaner off and look down the carb as you move the gas lever: you see gas squirting down? If only cold, does the choke get set? Can you manually set the choke using the accelerator linkage? Do you even have a choke? Or is it electric?

You mean repurposing the pins for the ammeters? You sure can, so long as you cut the original ammeter lines and protect them from shorting. Those dash cluster pins are now available at NPD, part 14489-10A that come with the dash cluster connector itself.

Put an incandescent bulb instead of an LED bulb and see what your meter reads. You should also set the dial to 200 not 20k. LED's have unusual resistance properties and require a certain amount of voltage/current to register a low impedance.

I prefer that the red wire be hooked to the RUN-only line vice ACC, but that is just me. Using the ACC line, your voltage will be a bit lower than battery voltage due to all of the circuitry from the battery, ignition switch, etc., so expect 10.5V with the engine not running. Not terribly useful, IMHO. With RUN-only lines, the voltage better reflects what is happening at the battery, albeit about 0.5 to 1.0 V lower for the same reasons. You should see an increase in voltage from idle to significant RPM (not the RPM who posts here on the forum, though...he can be insignificant at times! *G*).

Yes, remove the pins from the dash cluster and fold the connector back onto the wire and wrap in electrical tape to prevent it from shorting. Those lines are not fused and are always hot.

No insulation pads under lamps. With headlight knob pulled out, probe the disconnected dash cluster plug for pin 11 (blue/red wire) for voltage. You may have a bad fuse or broken wire to the dash cluster. You did remove the paper sack over your head, right? *G* If you think the LED's are polarity sensitive, simply take one of the turn signal bulbs and rotate it 180* and see what happens.

Yes, the bolt holding the regulator on; the pad beneath the bolt should touch the grounding plane of the circuit card. Put your multimeter on resistance, one probe on a gauge post, the other on the metal chassis of the dash cluster. You should see 100's of kilo-ohms or more. If you see 14 or 0 ohms, one of the posts is touching the case. If the post you are testing is a CVR output post, then any of the three gauge posts for that signal can be touching the metal housing. The ammeter posts are not related to the CVR and it is absolutely essential that they do not touch the metal housing.

Yup, I've seen 69/70 tach dash clusters go on eBay about once every 3 to 4 months, usually around $1000. I can easily convert the underdash to tach configuration; the headlight harness is nearly impossible to convert to stock configuration due to a unique alternator plug wire (4 pins, one of the center ones is thick for power) not found elsewhere. There's another person who can refurbish a tach: Phil Severance at http://www.phidonrestorations.com/ RCCI has a nifty plug-n-play tach gauge replacement for the 71-73 dash cluster and I know he's tried to do the same for the 69/70's. I don't know if he is still trying, but it may be worth a call.

Although I don't have children, I always thought that the teenagers were the parent's insurance policy for when the parents become old...sorta like an old age life policy. Too bad the premiums over the years seem out of whack with the payoff...

Cars must be female, as they follow the electrical rules... Female (plugs) are always hot when energized. Male (plugs) are always cold except when receiving/accepting power from females. QED; I rest my case.

Go on, make my day!

I can just see RR with a Red Ryder BB gun.